A THOUSAND BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS

This audio folktale collection is not one of damsels in distress or princes to the rescue. Whether set in countries of ancient Asia, in present-day America, or straddling the two, these stories retain elements of traditional Asian folktales but feature self-determining characters. "The Land of the Morning Calm" is a particularly noteworthy mix of past and present. The narrator of these works varies depending on each story's main character. Vikas Adam delivers only three stories but does so with an impressive range of emotions--from the lovelorn agony of the soldier in "Bullet, Butterfly" to the pensive uncertainty of an unwilling soldier in "Spear Carrier." In other stories Kim Mai Guest creates emotions for a wide variety of characters including snarky New York teens and a vengeful mountain goddess. L.T. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: JULY 2018]